Wahine Moana (Ocean Woman)
by Empress Akitla
Summary: Danny hated the water anyway. It totally figured he would drown on a case. Oh, and there's a shark circling. Or perhaps that isn't a shark...One-shot.


**Blowing some dust off of old files on my flash drive. Figured you guys might enjoy some of the random stuff I can find. I wrote this probably about three years ago.**

**It seems even back then I couldn't write something without a touch of fantasy present.**

**Enjoy!**

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**Wahine Moana**

Danny had never seen a mermaid before, nor would he probably ever see one again. At least, he was pretty sure that it was the shadow of a mermaid that drifted over him as he sunk deeper beneath the gently rolling waves. It could be a fish. A giant, graceful, lone fish.

Or a shark. It was definitely a shark. What would kill him first? The fishing weight tied to his ankle or the ferocious man eating beast circling above him? What would be the least eventful death? While most people thought that drowning would be peaceful, he knew otherwise after years of being a cop. His lungs would fill with water and his body would start to convulse in an effort to expel it while his brain fritzed with pain. And then he would die.

On the other hand, the shark may bite him and leave him bleeding and drowning. It may just rip off his arm and he would still drown. There was no way around this, was there? Where was a Super SEAL when you needed one?

Oh, yeah. He was on the other side of the island tracking down a different lead on the case while Danny and Lou had been assigned to check out the docks. They were the lucky winners, for they had unfortunately drawn the correct card and found their suspects' boat. Well, Danny had found it while Lou was getting information out of the dock master. This was why you never split up. Vaguely he wondered what happened to Lou…?

His ears popped as the water pressure changed. How long had he been sinking? It felt like several minutes, but had maybe been a few seconds. Why was everything in slow motion? Oh God, would he die in slow motion? What a way to go.

The shadow circled overhead again. Although he was sinking and the shadow should have been getting smaller, it was actually getting larger. It was diving towards him. The damn shark was going to kill him before he got the chance to drown, which wouldn't have taken very long. He didn't really have a chance to get a proper deep breath before being tossed overboard.

His chest burned something fierce as the light filtering through the surface of the ocean diminished. He would give Steve one thing, the ocean was peaceful. Is this how Billy died? Was he afraid for the first moments he was stuck under the water and then was he just calm?

He started when his wrist was grabbed hold of. Bubbles burst from his nose and he panicked. His chest tightened and he jackknifed from loss of oxygen. Stubbornly he refused his body's demand to inhale, but stars were dancing in his eyes. His grip was loosening. Thinking that they had won when he started to black out, his lungs drew in a breath.

It _hurt_. It hurt like nobody's business.

Somewhere in the fading recesses of his mind he was aware that he was convulsing. Again. Didn't he once tell Steve he'd rather go out silently over convulsions? Well, he was silently convulsing under the waves where no one would see or hear him die. Where his loud mouth would get him nowhere.

Blackness gripped him.

She powered through the water towards the glittering surface, tail slicing effortlessly behind her. The man she was dragging had gone still. Humans, she had found, could not hold their breath very long or dive very deep. However, she would forgive this one since it was not his will to be in the ocean.

Her head broke the surface. With a certain ease she hauled the man above the waves and wrapped her arm around his chest. She drew the knife strapped to her waist. Carefully she ran the tip along his submerged legs until she found the rope that weighed him down to the fishing weight. In three short movements the man suddenly became so much lighter as his captor fell away.

He wasn't breathing when she put her knife away. She tilted him onto his stomach and firmly hit his back with the heel of her palm. Nothing happened. With a heavy sigh she maneuvered him onto her back and held onto his hands while she swam towards the shore.

The waves became harder to navigate the shallower the water became, but she timed her thrusts so she could just ride the waves in. Abruptly she crashed into the sand. Using just one hand to drag herself and one hand to drag the man she pulled him out of the reach of the ocean.

She felt so much heavier here on land without the saltwater buoying her up. Breathing harshly through her nose she rolled the man onto his back and laced her fingers together. Sadly, this had become a common practice for her. Elbows locked, hands on his sternum, she pushed down on him. Hard.

Again and again and again. Seven. She had not been able to resuscitate seven people she had pulled from the water. This would not be number eight. He would be number five on her successfully saved list.

She felt a rib give way. She leaned down over him, clamping his nose shut and blowing into his mouth. Blinking a couple times to clear her version she started again on the chest compressions. Breathe, dammit, breathe.

Just as she was starting to pause to give him another breath the man coughed violently. She scooted to the side and shoved his shoulder so he wouldn't aspirate on the water he was starting to expel. Save him from drowning in the ocean only for him to drown in his own vomit. That would have been disappointing.

It felt like he was still floating in the ocean and he reeled like a drunken man when he tried to sit up. He collapsed back onto the sand, breathing deeply. It burned his raw throat and made his eyes water, but it was fresh and not salty this time.

He dug his fingers into the damp sand, relishing the feeling of grit getting stuck under his nails. He hated the water so much. Never again would Steve get him out on the water unless it was an absolute necessity. Maybe not even then. Steve would have to….

Did Steve save him? He cracked his eyes open into slits to stare at the tiny particles that cradled him. Had they found him in time? Lou must have gotten in touch with Steve and they raced out to catch their suspects and save him from a watery grave all in one whack.

His chest sure throbbed like he had had CPR performed on him. As he slowly rolled onto his back he winced at the familiar twinge of cracked and out of place ribs. Someone had definitely done CPR on him.

"Hope you didn't kiss me, you Neanderthal," he rasped quietly, swallowing against the thickness of his tongue and sandpaper quality of his throat.

"That's not a very nice thing to call someone that just saved ya from a quiet abyss."

Danny opened his eyes fully. He turned to look to his left, having not but five seconds ago expected to see his partner with a dumb grin or Aneurism Face. Instead, he saw long black hair that was just beginning to dry and a woman's face looking at him.

"Not a shark," he said hoarsely.

"No," she said with a shake of her head.

While he may have been sore in general and have felt decently foggy, he just had this odd sense of what he was seeing was for real, not an illusion of his sluggish brain. Scales shimmered as she moved and fins flexed on either side of her head. A webbed hand reached towards his face, brushing away a few wild hairs. Iridescent fins folded against her forearm so the spines wouldn't touch him.

"Hallucination?" he asked vainly.

"No," she offered him a hand.

Hesitantly he accepted it and sat up. His eyes immediately settled on the long and fishy body where her legs should have been. He had always imagined mermaids would be smaller, more normal sized with a fish tail as the only difference. She was bigger than him, her upper body more around Steve's size. And her aquatic half made her huge.

"You know, when I first saw you, I thought you were a mermaid but then I was like, that's ridiculous," Danny said. He coughed and carded his fingers through his hair. "So I went with a shark that was going to eat me."

"If a shark does come after ya, just punch it right in the nose or the gills, or the eyes if ya can reach," she said.

"That's what I tried to tell my partner, but he refuses to listen to me!" Danny said. Steve would definitely follow any instructions a mermaid gave him. Or maybe not, who knew with that animal. He held out a more formal hand to her. "I'm Danny, by the way."

"Brandi," she shook his hand firmly. She clasped her other hand on his shoulder. "Do me a favor, mate, don't wear any more ankle weights when you're swimmin'."

Danny kind of manically giggled. "Yeah, I won't try to, but that's no promise with my life."

"Well, if you do happen to wind up in the water again, never give up. Never give into the ocean," she said and patted him affectionately. "You never know when a mermaid may show up and drag you to safety."

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**Thanks for reading! **

**I may in the future create a collection of random one shots and AU tidbits that don't function by themselves and don't belong with Dragons. Would you guys like something like that?**


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